Comic Review: Wolverine – Snickt!

This week I’m taking a look a western comic by a manga artist – in this case Tsutomu Nihei’s take on Wolverine in the comic Wolverine: Snickt.

Title: Wolverine – Snikt!
Written & Illustrated by Tsutomu Nihei
Color by Guru EFX
Lettering by Cory Petit

Available from Amazon.com

The Premise

Wolverine is pulled into the future by a mutant girl named Fusa. In this future Humanity and Mutantkind alike have been driven to the brink of extinction by a life form called the Mandate. Wolverine is the only hope for the survival as only his adamantium claws can destroy the core of the Mandate’s hive mother, the Progenitor.

High Points

This is Nihei’s earliest work that I’ve seen in color, and I think the story works in color well – to the point that I’d actually like to see more of Nihei’s work in color.  Also, all of the dynamic, fluid action and sense of style in Nihei’s other work is pleasant here.

Low Points

Unfortunately, I don’t think Nihei knows quite how to write or draw Wolverine. Parts of his design work, like the hair and his X-Men uniform. However, Wolverine’s face looks too youthful. Oddly, for a Wolverine story, Logan doesn’t have any agency in the story – he just does what people tell him to do without any real question, without including any of Logan’s more rebellious character traits in the story.

Scores

Originality: Time travelling Mutants from post apocalyptic futures aren’t exactly new for the X-Men. Bringing a mutant to the future to save the future, instead of changing the past to change the future, is a little less common. 4/6

Artwork: Nihei’s art is fantastic as usual, though his color palette is a little bland. 4/6

Story: The story is very well written, though it runs into some pacing problems, particularly when the story gets into some heavy exposition in issue #3. 4/6

Emotional Response: This is something of a “What If?” story, so the emotional impact is limited more to emotional curiosity, though the action is fairly exciting. 4/6

Characterization: The new characters in the future are fleshed out well, though Logan seems very out of character. 3/6

Flow: 6/6

Overall: This is a good introduction to Nihei’s visual style, though I wouldn’t call it a great Wolverine story. 4/6

In total, Wolverine: Snikt gets 29/42